Far Rockaway Strand

Posted on November 20, 2016 by annamosbycoleman

far-rockaway-trail-2016_anna-mosby-coleman

Deep Calls to Deep

Posted on September 22, 2016 by annamosbycoleman

Deep calls to deep

A coral reef
You are too beautiful to contain my breath.

I will expire
Trying to breathe this water of life

Ocean manifest for gods and angels.
The pilot whale swims an orphan

In joyous company. Oh my Chelonia,
You surface for air and sun. With my finger near

Your heart and ear, shivering fin brushes my arm
I am shaking with neuronic lightening,

Again you are there, and I cannot breathe
When I feel you touch the cays so fast and full

Bleeding, and you rise trembling from your seat
To heaven’s throne, not a place on earth may you rest.

Too beautiful to hold me or thee,
We will die from holy fire.

As all your breakers wash over me.
As deep calls to deep.

Zoology: Chelonia mydas, the green turtle, is a large sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. Called Honu in Hawaiian, these beautiful aquatic reptiles are endangered.

Gondola Lift

Posted on August 1, 2016 by annamosbycoleman

We must cross a river, whenever possible, by ferry or lift
Roosevelt Island’s via dolce which benefits
You & me with the most coruscating skyline
That we could a stranger offer anon.

Put me in the front seat, or the back, & let me rock
Easily in wind & rain & the celestial night
Of trembling lights where air pushes still
From the floor of tourists in awe,

Manhattan Gondola, you win my heart each time I stand swaying
To the rhythm & cacophony of words in languages known
& unknown. Yet suddenly familiar, I lean left to leave his
Mobile’s POV — recording me — accidentally in peace.

Gondola Lift to Manhattan

Posted on July 31, 2016 by annamosbycoleman

Pig in Park

Posted on June 30, 2016 by annamosbycoleman

What a wonderful thing
is a pig in park. Mon Cheri
Cochon, let’s go for a walk;
you are my dearest,
my pig in a park.

At cartwheels he’ll balk
& with an oink, will
remark, when the
pleasure is mine — walking
sire swine in a park.

No, he’s not to eat
as indeed you can see,
but delight him with treats;
& he walks replete — my big
pig, NOT pork, in a park.

Now lightning bugs join us &
the sky falls dark. Children
break smiles as I dance
a jig & we’re happy to be
in a park with a pig.

Cinco de Mayo

Posted on May 5, 2016 by annamosbycoleman

The Fifth of May
for my brother Stuart

I was not too political, as I
was counting on you to express
my heart of hope without the difficulty
of saying out loud the things
that divide. These were not

Arguments that I wanted.
Then one October Sunday dying
– 5.5 months from that fifth of May –
[Twas an agonizing Cinco de Mayo
when you prophesied your fate.] &

Your halting words tried to
sustain me although crying
from the pain of bodily betrayal –
pancreas riddled with pathology &
a liver fading faster than your sprints of

Sweet athleticism so strong &
yet they could not catch a break
to win nor hold this awful thing at bay.
Now from that May & autumn-of-loss
I find myself shouting

For justice with your own words of
force that made me shy. Your politics
of mercy now grow fierce inside me until
I wonder each day how a man
of heaven holds the earth this way.